3 signs you need to move your website to a better platform
September 29, 2023
Don’t tell yourself that you’re “bad at technology” when you’re trying to fight bad technology.
Here are 3 signs you need to make a platform switch:
1) You dread & procrastinate making small changes
You need to change a date on your Events page and you haven’t the slightest clue how to get there.
You know there’s a way to change the color of the buttons on your homepage, but it’s buried under a mile-high mountain of settings.
Dread & procrastination in and of themselves are signs that you’re working with a tool that’s actively making your job harder than it needs to be.
2) You’re forced to pay someone to add basic features & new pages
You may choose to pay someone to do these things, and that’s awesome – keep doing that.
I’m talking about when you’re forced to pay a webmaster… when these basic tools are not available to you (and you want them).
It’s 2023 – there are tools out there that put the power in your hands with highly intuitive platforms and plug-and-play pages.
3) You have restricted access to your analytics
If this is kept under lock-and-key to any extent, run far away! Especially if you run paid ads, you need to be able to track your site traffic.
You don’t need to be a data analyst for basic analytics to be extremely helpful to you. You should own them.
Where should you go instead?
I like SquareSpace and Wix – not because they’re necessarily the best options for religious institutions specifically, but because there’s so much support out there to help you through sticky parts. A quick Google or YouTube search will solve almost any problem you come across.
Some of the more niche “church website builders” have such a (comparatively) small audience that it’s impossible to find answers when you need them.
SquareSpace & Wix templates are also quite beautiful and fairly customizable – especially if you have a professional do the intitial set-up for you.
Adding pages or changing content is incredibly easy, and they integrate with other tools you’re probably using (like an email service provider or Google Forms).
